Law Firms On The Map
Law Firms On The Map
Achieving Optimal ROI In Law Firm PPC Campaigns
In this episode, Gerardo, the PPC Director at On The Map Marketing, sits down with Kristaps, CEO of OTM Marketing and discusses effective PPC strategies for lawyers. Gerardo shares his journey of significantly growing the PPC department and provides insights into the essentials of PPC advertising, specifically for personal injury attorneys. Here you will learn:
1. What PPC (Pay-Per-Click) advertising is and its importance for law firms.
2. Key strategies for managing and optimizing PPC campaigns.
3. The importance of rigorous keyword research and data collection.
4. How to effectively use Google Ads' automated bidding strategies.
5. Insights into budgeting for PPC campaigns in competitive markets.
If you enjoyed the show please leave a review on Apple. If you have any questions you can find me (Kristaps Brencans, the CEO at On The Map Marketing on Twitter).
Thank you for listening :)
[00:00:00] Chris:
Welcome to Law Firm's On The Map, the go to digital marketing show for attorneys serious about their business growth. I'm your host, Kristaps Brencans, CEO of On The Map Marketing. And today we're going to jump into a topic, which is PPC for lawyers. I have a very special guest here today, Gerardo Ospina.
He is our PPC director. Um, and the reason why I want to bring him on is because he's done something incredible that not a lot of, uh, agency leaders have even seen or experienced. He's taken our PPC department from about 100, 000 a year now close to 500, 000, which is half million. And this accomplishment has come really through success of our clients.
So Gerardo, I'm really happy to have you here, um, just say hello.
[00:01:06] Gerardo:
Yeah, a hundred percent. Thank you for having me. Um, yeah, I know I'm ready to talk about anything we want to talk about related to PPC.
[00:01:13] Chris:
Yeah, there you go. Um, so just to jump into the topic, um, maybe in two words. What is PPC for, you know, just some listeners that might not know, or just give your take on it.
[00:01:26] Gerardo:
Sure.
[00:01:26] Chris:
Short version. I know, you're very technical.
[00:01:30] Gerardo:
No problem. So PPC stands for pay per click, which is a type of marketing, um, primarily done through Google, but also through many other platforms. Um, and ultimately what it, what it's all about is advertising through the internet, right? Um, to where you can get your brand name out there, your products, uh, let's say if you're a law firm, for example, you're looking for leads, you need lead generation, um, but yeah, it's advertising on the internet and, uh, it's paid, not organic,
[00:02:09] Chris:
So it's probably the top results when someone types in a keyword. First results we see are usually paid, right?
[00:02:16] Gerardo:
Exactly, yeah. Somebody Googles something and immediately that first thing that they're gonna see is gonna be a PPC ad.
[00:02:23] Chris:
Of course, because, you know, Google has to get paid too. Exactly. Alright, well, now that we got that out of the way, thinking back about three years, that's when you joined us?
About three years ago? Yeah, that's about right. Yeah, and PPC for Attorneys was a pretty new topic for you.
[00:02:41] Gerardo:
For sure. I've had some PPC experience before that, but, uh, this particular niche was new.
[00:02:47] Chris:
And the interesting thing that struck me when you joined us was that already coming into our agency, you were managing really big budget, but only for one brand, right?
What was the approximate budgets that you were managing at that time?
[00:03:01] Gerardo:
Yeah, that's right. Uh, I was doing in house PPC for a budget of about a million dollars a year.
[00:03:06] Chris:
Well, you know, we have Pretty decent size of portfolio of clients. What's the current budget you think, uh, you're managing right now?
[00:03:15] Gerardo:
So the current total budget, um, you know, it definitely varies cause we're always, uh, optimizing our campaigns and creating new ways to get leads.
But, um, it's definitely a lot monthly and we're looking at hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars.
[00:03:31] Chris:
Oh, a lot of responsibility on your shoulders.
[00:03:34] Gerardo:
A hundred percent.
[00:03:35] Chris:
So when, when you joined us, we had this interesting interaction. We talked about PPC for personal injury attorneys. Uh, and uh, I made the joke saying, if you can figure this out, you're gonna be diamond hands.
Right? So the GameStop meme and all that. And I feel like you're starting to scratch the surface of that because our growth that we've seen has come a lot from you managing, uh, PPC for personal injury attorneys. Can you talk a little bit on that history, how you got to this point, and what were sort of these, Explorational steps you took to, uh, to figuring out what successful PPC campaigns for personal injury attorneys would look like.
[00:04:21] Gerardo:
Yeah, a hundred percent. Um, so like you, like you mentioned, I started off, um, you know, in a different niche, so this was new, but, uh, when we started exploring this space, obviously there was a lot of trial and error, but You know, PPC as an industry moves so fast, whereas even a year ago, uh, the marketing strategies were way different compared to what we're doing now.
Right. Uh, but ultimately what we've been focusing on recently in the past year, um, is very rigorous research and understanding what particular niches in the personal injury space, uh, give the best results.
[00:05:05] Chris:
Okay. Thank you. Uh, could you give me an example? Let's say I'm a Memphis personal injury attorney and I want, I want to work with you, but on the map, what does rigorous research would look like?
And you can get as specific as you want, like, you know, pretending I'm the actual attorney, you know? Yeah. So what, yeah, what that process would look like and what this research entails.
[00:05:28] Gerardo:
Sure. So it all starts, uh, with the keyword research. So. Number one, we have to establish what possible service areas, um, this lawyer in Memphis can go after.
Let's say, uh, motor vehicle related accidents, maybe they accept med mal, uh, medical malpractice, maybe they don't. Um, understanding everything that they can approach, that way we start doing the research in all of those particular fields. The second part. Of that is also location. Mm hmm. I know a lot of lawyers, uh, Think it would be a great idea to you know, focus on maybe one small niche, however if they give us the Opportunity and if they're able to accept clients, let's say in memphis if they're able to accept clients throughout all of tennessee Okay, that allows us to do our initial research looking at the whole state and understanding what areas would be ideal to focus on.
[00:06:31] Chris:
So that's an interesting point I want to double click on. The tip you're basically saying is, if you're looking to do PPC for personal injury attorneys, rather than just looking at one city, think about the entire state that you can expand on and potentially find little new nuggets of opportunities. Can you speak more on that?
[00:06:50] Chris:
Why does it matter going in a broader state rather than just one city itself?
[00:06:56] Gerardo:
Yeah, absolutely. So there's two reasons. Uh, number one, on the research side of things. It allows us to approach the whole perspective of where our leads are from a broader scope that we can later refine as we optimize the campaigns.
Okay. Um, the second part of this is that Google and Google, the Google ads platform specifically, if you give it more data, uh, meaning more people, more clicks, more impressions to learn from, whether in the optimization stage or in the research stage. This will allow Google's bidding strategies, uh, to perform best.
[00:07:41] Chris:
Interesting. So you're touching on some of those latest stage elements that Google AdWords now has, because I don't think that was the case two, three years ago. You would just pick the keyword location and just go straight into the typical cost per click strategies.
[00:07:59] Gerardo:
Yeah, no, that's, that's a hundred percent right.
Um, you know, even a couple of years ago, I would have said. Uh, always start your campaigns on manual bidding and control that, uh, very strictly.
[00:08:12] Chris:
Before we go deeper, what is manual bidding, uh, for listeners?
[00:08:16] Gerardo:
Yeah, sure. So manual bidding is essentially, you create a campaign, you pick your keywords, you decide what your budget is for the whole campaign, and then you decide manually what's the max that you would like to bid on a particular keyword to show up for that result.
[00:08:34] Chris:
So how has that changed in 2024 from 2021?
[00:08:40] Gerardo:
Sure. So the biggest change, and this is kind of the big theme in Google in the past two years, is, uh, as you know, AI is becoming more and more powerful. So automated bidding strategies are becoming more and more favorable.
You just have to know which ones to choose at what point.
[00:08:59] Chris:
Okay. So what are these decision making factors for automated bidding?
[00:09:06] Gerardo:
Yeah, a hundred percent. So, uh, like I mentioned a couple of years ago, I would have started on manual. Uh, now there's actually a bidding strategy called maximize clicks, which for this niche in particular, I usually opt for, um, because this bidding strategy is really powerful.
In terms of allowing us to collect a lot of click data. Um, at the early stages of the campaign, which is later on, what's going to allow us to optimize. Okay.
[00:09:41] Chris:
So if I understand correctly, um, you know, the PI attorney from Memphis, we started working together. So the first month you're trying to drive as much traffic as possible within my ad campaign.
And then the second one you're starting to optimize these campaigns or What are what are the steps that you're going to be making?
[00:10:03] Gerardo:
Yeah, 100 percent. So the first month no matter what is always primarily about data collection Now as I mentioned that would be using the maximize clicks bidding strategy the second month or whenever we achieve enough click data to understand trends and make optimizations from Mm hmm Ideally, we would like to switch either in the second month or third month, depending on the budget and the size of reach that we're going after to a maximize conversions bidding strategy, because ultimately what we're after is leads.
[00:10:41] Chris:
So first you maximize for the clicks, then you look for trends, and I want you to talk a little bit more on that. And then you maximize the campaign for the conversions. Is that correct? Yeah. So what are the trends you're looking for and what are you trying to feed, uh, Google to teach about the law firm and your ad campaign?
[00:11:02] Gerardo:
Yeah, so, you know, this actually goes back to the research, uh, part of the conversation. Because when we research, part of the reason we want a broad scope to look at, uh, how we ideally want, uh, What is to show in that forecast of the research. We ideally want well at least 100 clicks per month Mm hmm, right.
It's a bare minimum
[00:11:27] Chris:
100 clicks. You said yeah 100 clicks, okay
[00:11:30] Gerardo:
The reason is because this is basically you can think of it like a census, you know out of a hundred people what happened? So Ideally, we would have at least as much budget as needed in order to get those first hundred clicks as fast as possible.
Okay. Once we have that, whether it's in the first month, if it's a big enough budget, it could be the first couple weeks. Mm hmm. If it's a small budget, it could be a month and a half. Yeah. Once we have that, we are able to analyze the data in a way where we're not making assumptions. We understand, hey. At least a hundred people or more have taken these actions.
So that allows us to go in there and implement the next bidding strategy.
[00:12:15] Chris:
Interesting. So in a way, you're almost telling Google, Hey, we're serious about this campaign. You can drive at least a hundred clicks.
[00:12:21] Gerardo:
Yeah.
[00:12:22] Chris:
So that's another interesting nugget you're giving. It's very important to drive the first hundred clicks to tell Google what your law firm is about and what your ad groups are about.
Um, I'm curious. Now we're getting closer to the conversion optimizations. So what are those elements that you're taking consideration to then make that switch? Are you looking at the ad groups or what, what are the steps you're taking to figure that out?
[00:12:48] Gerardo:
Yeah. So, um, number one, you know, uh, and I know I keep saying this, but it really does all come back to the research.
Um, the keywords that we selected have to be extremely niche to where all this data means something valuable to us.
[00:13:05] Chris:
Okay. Give us an example of a niche keyword.
[00:13:08] Gerardo:
Sure. So, let's say, uh, Memphis, lawyer, personal injury, and you want to focus on, uh, motor vehicle accidents. Of course. Truck accidents. I want truck accidents.
[00:13:19] Chris:
Okay. Perfect.
[00:13:20] Gerardo:
So, for example, a keyword that we would like to go after might be, truck accident injury lawyer, as opposed to necessarily, let's say, Truck crashes or truck crash lawyer near me.
[00:13:35] Chris:
So you're trying to build them, build these keywords a little bit longer tail? Is that what you're saying?
[00:13:41] Gerardo:
Um, longer tail has, there's an element to the keywords being longer tail.
However, the main thing, which I think would have probably been good to mention, um, when we're defining PPC is understanding the keywords with the best search intent. Right. Uh, search intent, meaning. When somebody types in this keyword into Google, what do they really want? You know somebody who types in car crash lawyer.
Maybe they want to you know Get something fixed for their car and they don't want to pay for it But for a personal injury lawyer, this person may need to be injured for their services to apply.
[00:14:26] Chris:
Of course So how many keywords you usually have in one ad campaign?
[00:14:33] Gerardo:
Yeah, so it definitely varies because it also depends on how many different service areas they can go after.
Let's say car accidents, truck accidents, uh, slip and fall accidents, dog bite. However, for each ad group, the usual range I end up finding is around 20 to 30 keywords, roughly. Okay.
[00:14:56] Chris:
And what are, of course, you know, this question is going to come, but we're just going to use comparison as Memphis and Tennessee.
If we wanted to start an aggressive MVA lead generation campaign, what the budget should look like?
[00:15:11] Gerardo:
Yeah, 100%. So the budget when it comes to uh, personal injury, you're going to have to be ready to spend. Yeah. Uh, you're going to have to be ready to spend to make that money. And. And also understanding that there's going to be an optimization period in those first couple of months.
[00:15:28] Chris:
So got to take that in your…
[00:15:30] Gerardo:
Exactly. So it's not just the monthly budget. It's how long do I have to spend this monthly budget to see real results? Um now across Most states, these are really competitive keywords, so usually, very rarely, I see these budgets go under 10, 000 a month. Um, now we've definitely, you know, experimented with some lower budget ranges, 10, 000 to 15, 000, and we've been able to see some results, uh, for sure.
[00:15:59] Chris:
But what's a healthy budget you would want to see?
[00:16:02] Gerardo:
Yeah, a healthy budget, uh, to me is usually, uh, 20k and above. You know, we, we, we play with budgets anywhere from 20k to 75k a month.
[00:16:15] Chris:
So I'm going to pause you real quick here. So for personal injury law firms getting serious about their MVA lead generation to metropolitan cities, 20k should be your minimum PPC budget.
And that can go up to, you know, a hundred plus K depending how aggressive you want to get. Um, but, Trevor, with these type of budgets, what do you think one could anticipate for their, uh, case acquisition costs?
[00:16:44] Gerardo:
Yeah, so, uh, again, the case varies on different markets, you know, what type of injuries are we talking about?
Um, let's just continue with that car accident injury, for example. Um, you know, we've been able to get that case value down, uh, very low at certain points, but that range, you know, uh, especially starting off, you're looking at that 2, 000 to 3, 000 per case. But the important thing to focus on here is that we're focused on your ROI, right?
Your return on investment. Now, if one case may be worth 9, 000 for you, maybe you're willing to pay two or three. Yeah, and over time those stack up to a profit where you're not even worried about your ad spend
[00:17:35] Chris:
Of course, it's the long term ROI I want to shift gears a little bit and pencil in a few other PPC advertising, uh, Approaches that are very popular.
Uh, we'll stick within search engines not deviating social media Uh, but In Google, a very popular advertising method right now is also LSA ads, local service ads. Could you speak on these and what has been your experience? And maybe let's just start with a simple explanation. What are LSA ads?
[00:18:09] Gerardo:
Yeah, so LSA ads are different from regular ads.
PPC, Google ads, because as I mentioned before, PPC is pay per click. Whereas LSA ads are, you're paying for leads. All right. Now that sounds great. Yeah, exactly. It sounds great. Um, however, few people know how to really optimize these. Um, the fact is there is less control and there's less insight when it comes to handling local service ads, LSAs.
Okay. But what you can do to really optimize them is focus on, uh, how you intake these leads. LSA is, is a very responsive platform. Um, so they're very attentive towards noticing how you interact with the clients that an LSA ad might actually. Send to your door.
[00:19:10] Chris:
Okay.
[00:19:11] Gerardo:
Um, so for example things like, um, Answering under 30 seconds.
[00:19:17] Chris: Yeah, very specific things. So if your intake is not on point LSA ads are not for you
[00:19:25] Gerardo:
Exactly. I would I would mainly say that you know, uh, We understand the best practices to set up your LSA for you And we'll give you all the ideas on how to optimize it. But ultimately You The burden falls on, uh, the client's end to make sure their intake process is seamless.
[00:19:44] Gerardo:
Okay.
[00:19:46] Chris:
What other elements influence your appearance in these LSA ads?
[00:19:51] Gerardo:
Sure. So there's a lot of elements. Um, now there's the big three, which, um, starting with the first one is, uh, response rate. Response rate is like I mentioned earlier, how fast do you pick up the phone? But it's also how fast and how detailed are you with?
Categorizing each lead you receive and reporting that information back to google. Okay um the second most important part is Uh location. Okay You you want to go after the right sort of like Google
[00:20:28] Chris:
Maps
[00:20:29] Gerardo:
100 percent Um, you want to go after the right location? You Now with LSAs, it's, it can get a little, uh, tedious, right?
Because ultimately you want to give LSAs very similarly to Google ads as much room as possible to play with. Uh, the general rule is let's say, set up your LSA account. Um, if you can accept leads throughout the whole state of Tennessee, in the Memphis example, within a 300 mile radius. Now most states, you know, you'll be able to do that. But also adding things like the exact zip codes the exact exact counties
[00:21:15] Chris:
Does it matter that you have office close to where the LSA ad is served?
[00:21:19] Gerardo:
So it matters to an extent but if you are able to accept clients as a business, uh, from anywhere in the state, then you have to be transparent with LSAs and say, Hey, within a 300 mile radius, I have no problem. And I can even accept clients remotely.
[00:21:40] Chris:
Yeah. But does proximity play a factor in displaying your LSA ad over another law firms?
[00:21:48] Gerardo:
It does to an extent. Um, now ultimately what factors in is like I mentioned, number one, your response rate. The accurate location targeting as big as possible, but as accurate as possible, uh, and then lastly your reviews Okay. Now it's not about how many reviews you get. Mm hmm. It's about the consistency of your reviews
[00:22:19] Chris:
Okay, so similar similar like Google Maps.
Yeah Wow, okay. That was an interesting insight in LSA ads What about budgets here? What are Some of the expectations people could see when all those things are dialed in?
[00:22:35] Gerardo:
Yeah, so the budget conversation with LSAs are a little bit different. Um, Because of the fact that uh, you know on several occasions We might set a larger budget than that client actually wants to experiment with But because there are other factors that are out of our control and more in the client's control Um, we want to give the budget room to dominate the search results on a weekly basis, because that's how you set budgets on LSAs
per week.
[00:23:10] Chris:
So back to my Memphis example, we're spending 50, 000 in traditional PPC, what should be my budget for LSAs? Sure, so
[00:23:21] Gerardo:
LSAs actually on their website themselves has a very useful, uh, budget, uh, search Okay, uh, estimator. Yeah, where you type it with it. Yeah, it's often correct So yeah I mean you type in some of your zip codes and you get a feel for how many… how much budget would be required for however many leads you want to get?
[00:23:47] Chris:
And so after doing a little bit of research and understanding how many more additional of it's turning Memphis. I'm very aggressive So what should it be? Give me a budget.
[00:23:54] Gerardo:
Yeah, I would say, uh, 50k in traditional PPC? To err on the side of caution, we can set that budget to 10k a month. Okay. For, for LSAs, right?
Whether it spends that full amount or not. Mmm. We'd find out during the testing, but it's okay to test this because if you're doing it right, you're only paying for leads.
[00:24:16] Chris:
So, would it be safe to say that with about now 60, 000 all in, and, and let's just take this on kind of higher end, my case acquisition costs will be 3, 000 plus, I'm getting about 20 cases a month now?
[00:24:31] Chris:
with this budget?
[00:24:37] Gerardo:
It's definitely possible. Um, okay. Not in the first month because we're optimizing and testing or it could. Well, so I would say that first month commit to testing and learning your strategies in a very similar example with another client we had around 60k in their budget. They started seeing, uh, up to 20 leads in their second month of optimization.
[00:24:57] Chris:
Wow, you're saying 20 leads or 20 cases? Sorry, 20 cases. Ah, thank you for catching it. Okay. Well, great. Um, we covered a lot about PI for, uh, PPC for PI attorneys. What about some of the other more popular practice areas like criminal, uh, PPC for criminal attorneys? Could you see, could you say the same approaches apply there?
[00:25:24] Gerardo:
Definitely the same approach in terms of, uh, what we like to implement on the research phase. Mm hmm. Um, really big on focusing on the search intent.
[00:25:34] Chris:
Yeah.
[00:25:35] Gerardo:
And, uh, Focusing on the right areas now the difference with let's say a criminal lawyer or a divorce or family lawyer Is that we're looking at largely different budgets here. Okay, so of course, yeah personal injury is uniquely competitive uh, not to say that these other categories aren't right, but uh, these other categories you may be able to approach with Smaller budgets, of course, of course. Yeah.
[00:26:03] Chris:
Yeah, and the the factors that cost per click is a lot lower there Then, then in P.I. Yeah. Okay. Um, I want to kind of take a step into another future. You know, we had the same conversation in two years, and I'm this personal injury attorney from Tennessee trying to scale my campaign. What do you think? What's going to be happening with with the search results with A. I. All these things coming into the play.
[00:26:34] Gerardo:
Yeah, so, uh, what's to come is definitely very interesting because, um, ultimately Google has been showing year over year that is, it's taking a little bit more control away from, uh, the advertisers in terms of the tools, which is why I thought it was important to mention, hey, you know, maybe a year ago I would have started off using manual, but I think advertisers should get comfortable with, uh, Using automated bidding strategies comfortable with learning how to use AI uh to their advantage because ultimately Um, that's what's going to get you the most results and that is what google is Focusing on
[00:27:21] Chris:
Yeah So in a way google is learning what kind of leads you want and then they're be they're able to serve you that. That sounds very utopian sounds almost too good to be true
[00:27:34] Gerardo:
Yeah, I mean well at the end of the day, You know, uh, it's definitely going to require a lot of time before, uh, in my opinion, before all of these, uh, bidding strategies become automated completely.
[00:27:46] Gerardo:
Yeah. You know, I don't, that's, that's complete speculation. Um, you know, even with myself using AI in our bidding strategies now, there's a ton of manual things that, uh, are required on a day to day basis, like adding negative keywords. Um, like placing bit adjustments on particular locations, zip codes, uh, audience groups, demographics, all those things are manual.
[00:28:15] Chris:
For our listeners, I just want to take a quick step back. Negative keywords are ones you put in a whole list in your AdWords campaign that you don't want Google to display your Uh, ads for and which makes a lot of sense if you're doing automated bidding and automating automated ad displays, you don't really know what you kind of give it a range.
Hey, I want car accident traffic, uh, people who are looking for car accident lawyers. But do not show me for these, uh, this particular group of keywords. All right. Well, Toretto, we're coming to an end of this episode. Um, and as the closing words, um, Maybe there are some thoughts that you want to share with our audience that we didn't get to touch on or some some, you know, Take away point that's just in you and you're like, you know what?
I want to get that one out
[00:29:04] Gerardo:
Well, uh, I would say there's you know, it's hard to choose because When it comes to optimizing a PPC campaign, there's so many elements and we go extremely deep with it. But, out of the topics that we did touch, um, I just want to mention how, how important all of those are. From the initial phase of understanding who, uh, a particular client, or in this case a lawyer, what type of leads they want, to the keyword research, uh, to giving us enough room.
Um, location targeting to really craft the best campaign for you. Yeah. Um, all of those things are extremely important and understanding that, Hey, you know, this is paid advertising. You know, you gotta pay. Uh, to get started and, uh, if you're willing to put in the investment, you can get really big returns.
[00:30:09] Chris:
Nice. And anything, you know, a lot of those things you talk about are pretty technical. Um, I imagine the relationship is crucial for, between the attorney and the agency.
[00:30:21] Gerardo:
Yeah, no, I'm glad you mentioned that because that's, that's another, uh, big part of, of a successful campaign, you know, you want to establish trust, uh, between, uh, you and whoever you're working with, just like any other business partner relationships.
So the way we like to do that is being completely transparent, uh, you know, we like to show give you all your numbers Through a live link you can always access. Yeah, we like to have frequent conversations How's it going? Like what kinds of leads are you experiencing? What are you what are you getting on your end that yeah, we are missing on our end Having that constant dialogue, um, you know, it's a team effort.
So it ends up becoming a much more successful campaign if, if that happens.
[00:31:13] Chris:
Well, I love it. I love it. So audience, you're listening to this and, and you want to have Gerardo on your team. Uh, you know, reach out to us. Uh, we can set something up. Uh, and it's true fact, Gerardo doesn't just sit behind a computer.
He's actually a lot of client calls, strategy calls. Figuring out where the budgets are going. Um, there's no secret team here in another country. This is the team. Uh, we're all working together. We do have office in Latvia. So there is another, uh, team in, uh, my home country. But that's not the point. The point is we're here to help our clients grow.
ROI is most important. Transparency is crucial. Otherwise, you're not going to get to the ROI. And at the end of the day, you're If all those things align, we're having an amazing time. Everyone's growing and, uh, we can just keep getting to the next level. Thank you so much, Gerardo. That was a lot of fun. Uh, so I'm excited to bring you back on and talk about maybe a million dollar a month PPC campaigns.
[00:32:16] Chris:
Let's do it. All right. Thanks.
